In the Garden
A good many gardeners perhaps would grow a great many more plants from seed if they realised how quick the results may be. Even such a shrub as a gorse will flower the first year of growing, though doubtless most shrubs and trees are slow. Holly, for example, takes a good part of two years to germinate, and a walnut may take fifteen years to come into bearing. Incidentally, it is a new discovery that grafted walnuts bear after three or four years. Contrariwise, a very large number of perennial plants flower pretty well as soon as the annuals. By far the loveliest dahlia I have seen this season was grown from seed sown last year, and Michaelmas daisies are never so attractive as when they are slender plants grown from seed. It is amusing to sow one's own seed, but seldom of much good for growing a particular variety. One amateur dahlia expert sowed about a pole of ground with seed from a white dahlia that he fancied. Not a single one of the progeny showed any trace of white whatever! Producing pure seed is an expert's job. Hybrids may, of course, be beautiful and interesting, but they are apt to degenerate with strange rapidity. This is especially true perhaps of most sorts of poppy. What poor things self-sown Shirleys soon
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